Brite Winterhttp://www.britewinter.com
Cleveland’s Premier Winter Art & Music FestivalMon, 16 Mar 2015 15:47:12 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.0.1Brite Cleveland receives 2015 Dominion Community Impact Awardhttp://www.britewinter.com/brite-cleveland-receives-2015-dominion-community-impact-award/
http://www.britewinter.com/brite-cleveland-receives-2015-dominion-community-impact-award/#commentsMon, 16 Mar 2015 13:17:52 +0000http://www.britewinter.com/?p=5020Brite Cleveland was one of 12 winning community organizations in the 20th annual Dominion Community Impact Awards competition, co-sponsored with Inside Business Magazine. Brite Cleveland was recognized for the 2014 Brite Winter Festival, an outdoor winter arts and music event that annually attracts tens of thousands of visitors to the city. Brite Winter Festival visitors generated $650,000 in purchases with local businesses in 2014. “We… Read more →]]>Brite Cleveland was one of 12 winning community organizations in the 20th annual Dominion Community Impact Awards competition, co-sponsored with Inside Business Magazine.

Brite Cleveland was recognized for the 2014 Brite Winter Festival, an outdoor winter arts and music event that annually attracts tens of thousands of visitors to the city. Brite Winter Festival visitors generated $650,000 in purchases with local businesses in 2014.

“We are honored and grateful to receive this award from the Dominion Foundation,” said Brite Cleveland Executive Director Brian Horsburgh “It’s support will allow us to continue to brighten up the winter season with help from our many local artists and musicians.”

Dominion is one of the nation’s largest producers and transporters of energy, with a portfolio of approximately 24,600 megawatts of generation, 12,400 miles of natural gas transmission, gathering and storage pipeline, and 6,455 miles of electric transmission lines. Dominion operates one of the nation’s largest natural gas storage systems with 949 billion cubic feet of storage capacity and serves utility and retail energy customers in 12 states. For more information about Dominion, visit the company’s website at www.dom.com.

]]>http://www.britewinter.com/brite-cleveland-receives-2015-dominion-community-impact-award/feed/0Brite Winter 2015 Artist Spotlight: Hildebrandt Artist Collectivehttp://www.britewinter.com/brite-winter-2015-artist-spotlight-hildebrandt-artist-collective/
http://www.britewinter.com/brite-winter-2015-artist-spotlight-hildebrandt-artist-collective/#commentsFri, 20 Feb 2015 16:08:37 +0000http://www.britewinter.com/?p=5004Interview by Emily Appelbaum This year, Brite Winter is thrilled to be exploring sustainability in the arts through our continued partnership with the Great Lakes Brewing Company, and a new collaboration with the Hildebrandt Artist Collective. Started in 2013, the Hildebrandt Artist Collective consists of a dozen Cleveland artists who share a workshop, exhibition space and good times, playing host… Read more →]]>Interview by Emily Appelbaum

This year, Brite Winter is thrilled to be exploring sustainability in the arts through our continued partnership with the Great Lakes Brewing Company, and a new collaboration with the Hildebrandt Artist Collective. Started in 2013, the Hildebrandt Artist Collective consists of a dozen Cleveland artists who share a workshop, exhibition space and good times, playing host to gallery openings, fundraisers, and movie nights.

Based in the historic Hildebrandt Co. building, the collective joins a number of other small creative enterprises in reviving what was once a family-owned meat processing firm, dating from the late 1800s to the 1970s, into a thriving hub for local artists and food entrepreneurs.

Katie Simmons, Community Outreach Ambassador and Director of Special Projects for Great Lakes Brewing Company, has been a driving force in bringing the Hildebrandt space alive. We met up with Katie and asked her about her work at the Brewery, in her studio, and around Cleveland.

What is your favorite thing about being an artist in Cleveland?

There is a strong sense of support and community in Cleveland. Whenever I need materials, I reach out to individuals and companies and they are always will to help. I needed plastic bottles for a public art project at the Burning River Fest and it took one email for the staff at the Progressive Field to save them and allow me to pick them up.

What is a recent milestone you achieved in your work?

I graduated last month with my Masters from the University of Akron in Clothing, Textiles, and Interiors. I am currently enrolled in a Master Weaver and Master Spinner programs in Ontario, Canada. It is a six-year process and I am in the first year.

How has Cleveland – the weather, the city, the people – affected your outlook?

I have lived in Cleveland for a decade and have seen it evolve into the vibrant place it is today. The weather makes us appreciate nice days and this translates into how we live our lives. When the sun is out, we are the first people to be sitting on a patio enjoying a beer no matter what the temperature. I love the diversity of Cleveland. No matter how far I travel I always miss Cleveland’s quirky cultural scene. The Hildebrandt Artist Collective started because I felt that collaborative spirit in Cleveland. We all have common goals and want to help others to make the world around us the best it can be.

You volunteer with textile artists from Bolivia. What have you learned from working with people whose practice and environment seem so different, and how has it influenced the work you do here?

In Bolivia, they process fiber from start to finish: they spin, weave, and use local natural dyes. Their lives consist of using the materials around them and living sustainably. I am lucky to work for a company that challenges me be similarly creative. One of the owners will hand me a cardboard tube and ask me what else it could be. I am able to reuse and re-create brewery waste into pieces of art and functional objects.

What’s your favorite thing about the cold?

It motivates me to want to spin and weave to stay warm!

Another Hildebrandt member, Andrea Howell, uses the space to create her fashion brand, Tidal Cool. She was happy to share her own take on what makes Cleveland such a vibrant arts community, and how winter plays a role.

What’s the best thing about being an artist in Cleveland?

The residents and visitors here do a tremendous job to support the artists and their work. There are some fantastic galleries, work spaces, and festivals for art in the greater Cleveland area. And the seasons play a role in my work as well.

Much of my work is done during the winter, and I spend most my summer selling what I produce during the winter months. It warms me up to make swim and resortwear when there’s snow on the ground!

Lastly, we caught up with Lisa Lorion Bridenbaker, who works out of Hildebrandt and also teaches children age 3-12 with the Greater Cleveland YMCA. For her, working as an artist in Cleveland is all about community.

What makes Cleveland different from other cities you’ve worked in as an artist?

It’s the motivation and encouragement you get from your peers. Cleveland artists are always willing to support and rally around each other when the industry gets tough.

You say Cleveland has changed the way you work. Tell us about that!

Cleveland is always reinventing itself as a city. Look at what’s happening in downtown and on the near west side! Working out of a repurposed building like Hildebrandt has given me great experiences with other creative artists that I couldn’t get while I was working on my own.

And your favorite thing about winter?

It has to be those calm nights after a heavy snow where you can have a giant snowball fight and not have windburn on your face.

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http://www.britewinter.com/brite-winter-2015-artist-spotlight-hildebrandt-artist-collective/feed/0Brite Winter 2015 Artist Spotlight: Ed Morra/Mike Renderhttp://www.britewinter.com/brite-winter-2015-artist-spotlight-ed-morra/
http://www.britewinter.com/brite-winter-2015-artist-spotlight-ed-morra/#commentsFri, 20 Feb 2015 15:25:13 +0000http://www.britewinter.com/?p=4994Interview by Emily Appelbaum Ed Morra has worked with his partner Mike Render for more than thirty years, but not in the jobs they currently hold. They were first collaborators as members of the popular eighties band Joy Circuit. Their later career paths took them into more technical fields… but they still like to play, in more ways than one! We caught… Read more →]]>Interview by Emily Appelbaum

Ed Morra has worked with his partner Mike Render for more than thirty years, but not in the jobs they currently hold. They were first collaborators as members of the popular eighties band Joy Circuit. Their later career paths took them into more technical fields… but they still like to play, in more ways than one! We caught up with Ed, so he could tell us about holding down a heavy-duty real world job, all while finding the time to make music, tinker and, above all, create.

You work as a biomechanical engineer by day. How does this work inform the work you do as an artist and vice versa?

My work has allowed me to learn the details of how people move and the many ways to record their movements in three dimensions. I also create a variety of physics simulations on a computer that allow you to match these recorded 3D motions to the movement of a virtual person or avatar, then predict the muscle activity that the person needed to use to move their body through the motion.

Predicting how the body works on the inside, just by watching the movement on the outside, is a neat trick that helps researchers figure out how best to perform corrective surgeries for people who may need a joint replacement or may have trouble walking correctly.

You and Mike have been working together for a long time, first as musicians, now as artists and makers. Can you describe how the team is built?

Mike is a software design engineer and is expert at manipulating streams of data, so he is able to make sense out of the motion data we capture and turn it into a fun game.

We can build customized interactive spaces that respond to the movement of people casually passing in and out, like at Brite Winter. Their movements are captured and then passed into a custom-made computer program that animates a snowy avatar to match their movements. Projecting a life size version of the avatar on the wall makes it feel like a mirror in a winter world. If the person does a little dance, the avatar dances the same way. If you hold certain poses by yourself or with a friend, fun things happen in the world.

This sounds a little Simon Says meets the Hokey Pokey – what’s it like watching people do all kinds of crazy things in order to manipulate the game?

It is very fun for us to watch people interact with the display. They come up with the coolest unexpected ideas to make their avatar interact with the virtual world they find themselves in. There are no rules to the game, you just have fun exploring the snowy world. Add a friend and it compounds the effect of your actions.

You played in an eighties band you described as “kind of a big deal” back in the day. Now you guys still get together, but you’ve diversified a bit: ­ you still make music, but you also tinker, create set pieces, work in electronics and act as a mini ­production company. Can you talk about the transition from a band with a more serious music focus to this jacks-­of-­all trades type of practice?

Joy Circuit was a pretty popular New Wave act based out of the Cleveland, Kent and Akron music scene back in the early eighties. We used to tour, record and make videos back when we were younger and did not have the families that we do now. We recently reformed for a hunger benefit and were humbled by a standing ovation from a very large crowd at the Kent stage.

We were invited to audition for the TV show America’s Got Talent last year and blew the producers minds when we showed up in full costume with a “mobile performance platform” that looked kind of like a compact robotic stage show crossed with a hoverboard. I think we would have made for interesting television, but the network contract was unsignable.

We are only able to do larger theatrical shows once a year or so with our schedules, so we make sure they are visually interesting with several custom lighting and electro-mechanical stage props that we have geeked out building ourselves. We just like to make things, whether it is music or lighting props or motorized gadgets. The band is a great outlet for all of that.

Find old and new videos of Joy Circuit on YouTube by finding their record label, Sinister Bop!

]]>http://www.britewinter.com/brite-winter-2015-artist-spotlight-ed-morra/feed/0Brite Winter 2015 Artist Spotlight: Ashley Sullivanhttp://www.britewinter.com/brite-winter-2015-artist-spotlight-ashley-sullivan/
http://www.britewinter.com/brite-winter-2015-artist-spotlight-ashley-sullivan/#commentsThu, 19 Feb 2015 18:34:06 +0000http://www.britewinter.com/?p=4989Interview by Emily Appelbaum Ashley Sullivan teases bold colors from the landscape and captures fragments that are at the same time wistful and perfectly concise — no question that a major influence on her art has been growing up in northeast Ohio, a place where “the rust belt smokestacks and old industry give way to leaning barns and fields of soy.”… Read more →]]>Interview by Emily Appelbaum

Ashley Sullivan teases bold colors from the landscape and captures fragments that are at the same time wistful and perfectly concise — no question that a major influence on her art has been growing up in northeast Ohio, a place where “the rust belt smokestacks and old industry give way to leaning barns and fields of soy.”

She says that, “Depending on the season, or the temperament of the weather that day, the landscape outside the windows changed. Light ebbed and flowed against a field that boomed green and whispered in summer breezes and went all cracked brown and sharp when whorls of snow came tumbling out of the iron skies in winter.”

She learned to see the beauty in everything, and to keep it “all safe in the deepest pockets of her brain.”

After living in Chicago, Ashley has boomeranged back to Cleveland and is newly settled in Shaker Heights.

What is your favorite thing about being an artist in Cleveland?

Very few tiger attacks.

What is a recent milestone you achieved in your work?

I’ve just begun showing my paintings in a gallery downtown that’s been around for more than a century. Seriously. (See her work at the Bonfoey Gallery – http://www.bonfoey.com/Sullivan.html)

How has Cleveland – the weather, the city, the people, or any other aspect – affected the work you do?

I am having a love affair with Cleveland’s bridges.

What’s your favorite thing about winter?Long johns. Do people know what long johns are? They should!

]]>http://www.britewinter.com/brite-winter-2015-artist-spotlight-ashley-sullivan/feed/0Brite Winter 2015 Artist Spotlight: Muamin Collectivehttp://www.britewinter.com/brite-winter-2015-artist-spotlight-muamin-collective/
http://www.britewinter.com/brite-winter-2015-artist-spotlight-muamin-collective/#commentsWed, 18 Feb 2015 21:55:37 +0000http://www.britewinter.com/?p=4974by Jacqueline Bon Muamin Collective bends genres and hangs metaphors out to dry on cassette tapes. They sound like the future while exploring their past. Josiah “Zion” Quarles and Aaron “aLIVE” Snorton are longtime collaborators and even longer friends. Quarles, MC and poet, and Snorton, producer and MC, have been making music together as Muamin Collective for more than a decade.… Read more →]]>

by Jacqueline Bon

Muamin Collective bends genres and hangs metaphors out to dry on cassette tapes. They sound like the future while exploring their past.

Josiah “Zion” Quarles and Aaron “aLIVE” Snorton are longtime collaborators and even longer friends. Quarles, MC and poet, and Snorton, producer and MC, have been making music together as Muamin Collective for more than a decade.

They self-released their fourth album, So Blue It’s Black, before re-releasing it through Austin-based (iN)Sect Records, in March last year. The album is so fine-tuned that blasting to it over stereo headphones truly emphasizes its soulfulness, artistry and masterful details.

“The album represents us growing up, getting older — not just sitting around drinking brews, making beats,” said Snorton.

A big portion of Snorton’s inspiration is connected to watching his 7-year-old daughter grow up. Muamin’s previous album, World B. Free celebrated his daughter’s birth and he views it as a metaphorical bridge toward the direct dense lyricism featured on So Blue It’s Black.

“So Blue It’s Black is more focused,” said Quarles. “I think in the early albums we were much more in the moment of creation and sometimes things would make no sense and it wouldn’t matter, but in this process it was a little bit more objective because we had gained perspective.”

Quarles and Snorton refused to listen to anybody else’s expectations about record. They fine-tuned it and let it marinate for nearly four years. “It’s a concise album without any wasted parts,” said Quarles. And it’s true, the songs don’t overstay their welcome. Their succinctness leaves you feeling fulfilled — yet yearning for more.

They engineered the album in the home studio of Revolution Brass Band’s trumpet player, Jake Wynne who taught them valuable lessons in the mastering process. “Josiah has one of those million dollar voices that need a good microphone to get all the tones out of his voice, he’s a solid baritone,” Snorton said.

For Muamin, piecing the song together and making beats is a collaborative process. Quarles grew up in Shaker Heights and was 13-years old when he met Snorton, from South Euclid, at a church camp retreat. “We just wanted it to sound organic and real. We have a lot of comfortability toward each other’s thoughts because we’ve known each other since we were kids,” Quarles said.

Quarles has roots in poetry and spoken word and you can hear his skillfulness in the conciseness and turns in a lyric that create different perspectives within one song. “I didn’t start from free styling first, I started from poetry and writing in English class way early on,” he said.

It was a beautiful day, ugly part of town. / Time stands still, merry go round.

Jerseys on the field, siblings on the playground. / Everybody scatter when the gunshots sound.

These are lyrics from the second verse of “Inna City.” Quarles, who is a soccer coach in Cleveland’s Slavic Village, says the song’s inspiration happened on a sunny day when everyone at a game heard three gunshots. He says everyone froze and then fell to the ground. Quarles finds that his writing is directly inspired by formative experiences in Cleveland both good, bad and the grey area in between.

Through the poetry world, Quarles met Cleveland writer, DIY artist and Guide to Kulcher co-owner, RA “Rafiq” Washington who became a founding member of Muamin. They played their first DIY show at Inside Out, Washington’s old bookstore and gallery. Gradually, he changed direction musically and formed formed experimental rock/ spoken word band, Black Tiger before Maumin’s first full album. He remains a big influence on the group.

Muamin hopes that they age gracefully, like a fine wine — gaining perspective, deepening their flavor and perhaps even resonating with different generations.

“My mother listened to our record and she hit me with ‘I love you baby and I support everything you do but I didn’t think I would be able to listen to your album. But man…I listened to this from beginning to end!’” said Snorton. “When you do an album and somebody in a whole different generation that knows what rap is but doesn’t necessarily like it says it’s cool, when it’s crossing generations, that’s when you know you’ve made a classic.”

In the future, Snorton plans to launch a cassette label called Physical Recordings focused on producing his favorite DIY artists. Maumin’s next big move is producing a live album. Their unique show at Brite Winter will include a live band trio with Neil Chastain (drums, percussion) Mike McNamara (guitar) and Eli Henley (piano, bass, keyboard).

]]>http://www.britewinter.com/brite-winter-2015-artist-spotlight-muamin-collective/feed/0Brite Winter 2015 Artist Spotlight: Randy Criderhttp://www.britewinter.com/artist-interview-randy-crider/
http://www.britewinter.com/artist-interview-randy-crider/#commentsWed, 18 Feb 2015 11:00:50 +0000http://www.britewinter.com/?p=4107Intergalactic spacemen, sloshed robots, sketchbook babes, and hip-hop dinosaurs — welcome to the magical world of Randy Crider. A cartoonist/illustrator whose work has been used for storyboards, comic books, gaming, magazines, fliers, and more. Crider is also the creator of Brite’s faithful mascot, Fluri the Yeti. Aside from his regular hustle, he’s also a member of the beloved Cleveland artist group Rust… Read more →]]>Intergalactic spacemen, sloshed robots, sketchbook babes, and hip-hop dinosaurs — welcome to the magical world of Randy Crider. A cartoonist/illustrator whose work has been used for storyboards, comic books, gaming, magazines, fliers, and more. Crider is also the creator of Brite’s faithful mascot, Fluri the Yeti. Aside from his regular hustle, he’s also a member of the beloved Cleveland artist group Rust Belt Monster Collective and teaches cartooning at BAYarts.

Interview by Nikki Delamotte | Update by Todd Sheppard

“I do my best to give Fluri as much heart and energy as I can despite being a bit awkward and tangled up in lights, which sums up the event pretty well, I think, given our winters.” – Randy Crider

How did you get your start as an artist? Did you always skew towards cartooning?

I’ve drawn as long as I can remember, and there’s not a point when you shift from “guy who likes to draw” to “artist”, it’s just a thing I do. It’s always been cartooning, even when I try not to, no class or book has ever been able to shake that from me no matter how much I try. I’m a terrible artistic chameleon, and it pretty much destroys any hopes of an anonymous graffiti career.

You have the coolest characters in your work. Where do you dream them up? Any favorite pieces or characters you’re particularly attached to?

Thanks! You’re asking the wrong guy where they come from, might be a better question to ask a psychologist. I don’t have any favorite characters, but I’m really into the style I’m using lately, and I enjoy the world that it’s slowly creating. It’s very flattering that folks are enjoying watching the world take shape with me.

You’re part of a pretty awesome group, the Rust Belt Monster Collective. What kind of plans do you have in the works and what’s been your favorite thing about collaborating with your best friends over the past years?

Meeting up with the RBMC is like coming home for family dinner. It’s something that we have to do every so often, and it’s really just a bonus that we end up with cool paintings afterwards. This is a big year for us, we’re working with Graffiti Heart and we’ll be installing and painting some new art near the Detroit Shoreway. We’re also working on releasing a book chronicling the past three years of murals and illustrations. Oh, and we have new sparkly buttons.

When you’re looking for inspiration, what do you continuously come back to – whether other artists, rituals, styles or techniques?

There’s certainly a stable of artists that I steal techniques and styles from, but my pals are the best inspiration. Between The Drink And Draw Social Club (twice a month at Great Lakes Brewing Company) and the figure drawing groups all over town there’s a constant stream of reasons to keep at it. It’s the best thing in the world to have people in your life who you look up to that’ll call you a peer. Lately, the biggest inspiration has been my daughter. Trying to come up with things that she’ll think are cool, and hopefully drawing things to help understand her dad down the line.

You’ve created the artwork for Brite for the past few years. What can you tell us about creating the art and our beloved furry mascot?

He, She, It — depending on who you ask — is named Fluri, and was born out of a few conversations with Aaron Erb about cartoons, it’s kind of Cleveland’s answer to holiday specials. I do my best to give Fluri as much heart and energy as I can despite being a bit awkward and tangled up in lights. I think it sums up the event pretty well given our winters.

You also teach cartooning. What’s the best part of teaching?

I teach cartooning at BAYArts and it’s always a highlight of my week. They’ll probably never know how much they inspire my work. It’s the only job I’ve ever had that I get bummed out when I don’t have to go to it.

Brite Winter is my favorite thing about the winter season, especially since the its how the Rust Belt Monster Collective always begins our live painting year. Hot cocoa is nice too I guess.

You’ve said “Cleveland is such a comic book town and that really needs to be celebrated.” What’s your favorite thing about Cleveland and being an artist in Cleveland?

Nothing makes me happier than a Midwestern work ethic being used for passion and not just survival. I think it’s easy for people to show Cleveland pride because we had to build it ourselves, it didn’t exist before.

]]>http://www.britewinter.com/artist-interview-randy-crider/feed/0Brite Winter 2015 Artist Spotlight: Archie Greenhttp://www.britewinter.com/brite-winter-2015-artist-spotlight-archie-green/
http://www.britewinter.com/brite-winter-2015-artist-spotlight-archie-green/#commentsFri, 06 Feb 2015 15:34:43 +0000http://www.britewinter.com/?p=4911FFby Jacqueline Bon www.archiegreenisclass.com “Whoever wants to be great, stand up right now. Now repeat after me, If you want to be great and successful, you must walk hand and hand, side by side with great and successful people.” This is the opening line of independent Cleveland rapper/producer Archie Green’s song titled “C.O.S.” The song pays tribute to author and… Read more →]]>FFby Jacqueline Bon

“Whoever wants to be great, stand up right now. Now repeat after me, If you want to be great and successful, you must walk hand and hand, side by side with great and successful people.”

This is the opening line of independent Cleveland rapper/producer Archie Green’s song titled “C.O.S.” The song pays tribute to author and scholar, Dr. Dennis Kimbro through a soundbite of him instructing a classroom.

“Repeating it is a way of subconsciously getting yourself to get to believe it,” said Green, with natural self awareness and calmness to his demeanor, as an eclectic mix-up of songs murmured in the periphery at JUKEBOX bar.

His first official release, “The Greatest Pretender” is a diverse and thoughtful glimpse into the mind and inspirations of a rapper who isn’t rhyming about coming from rags to riches. Instead, he writes about his authentic reality — breaking through the glass ceiling to follow your dreams and doing it with dignity.

“In rap until recently, you always had to have street cred. You either had to come from the street or talk about the street to have the credibility in hip hop. For me, most of the people who buy or listen to rap music grew up in the suburbs just like me,” said Green, who grew up in Chagrin Falls.

He aims to bring CLASS back to hip hop. “The major underlying theme in all of my music is CLASS, which stand for Creatively Learning to Achieve Sustainable Success,” Green said. If you listen carefully, he has an affinity for paying tribute to his inspirations through his choice of soundbites.

Green is a complex multi-faceted dude with a ton of influences coexisting in his art. He’s inspired by the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are.” He also cites jazz & soul classics including Thelonious Monk, Nina Simone, Miles Davis, Marvin Gaye and a tons of modern artists — Kid Cudi, Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole and of course, Kanye West, just to name a few.

“I’m currently working on an EP called “The Black Pharaoh.” It’s inspired by paying homage to pioneers of African American culture and to my grandfather,” he said.

During visits to his grandfather’s home, Green frequently records their long conversations. His father also recorded conversations with his grandfather as a way to commemorate him permanently. In “The Greatest Pretender,” Archie uses a sample from a skit with his grandfather about chasing dreams.

“I feel like my grandfather is one of my heroes, and I talk to him all the time. He came from a third grade education, moved to Cleveland as a teenager, ran away from home and built the house he lives in now. In the skit he talks about his third Mercedes Benz,” he laughed. “This is a guy who was once sweeping the floors but when he retired he was one of the highest paid in the building.”

Green started rapping at 13 and used to spit rhymes at school talent shows. By 18, he began producing, when he got to college he became serious and decided to take hip hop to the next level. “I thought rap was the coolest sh*t out of everything I did as a kid,” he said. “I used to write stories and I used to record radio shows on my Dad’s old tape recorder. Rap just seemed to be the coolest and it was something I was the best at.”

He lived in Atlanta and New York City before returning to Cleveland’s East Side. In Atlanta, he completed his undergrad at Morehouse College — an all-male historically black college that is the alma mater of Martin Luther King, Jr. He recently earned his Masters’ Degree in Music Business at New York University’s esteemed Steinhardt School.

“One of the reasons why education is so important to me is to look out for all my brothers and sisters. It’s sad to say that as an African American male that you’re a target. I try to lead by example when I wear suits and hard-bottomed shoes and by how I treat my elders and women,” he said. “How you carry yourself is how you combat.”

After college, Green had no intention of returning to Cleveland. “Originally I was planning on staying in New York but I couldn’t find a job and I was broke,” he said. “I came back home and the vibe that I got that was that Cleveland was different from when I left,” he said. He was pleasantly surprised to return to a city with Uber drivers, Lebron James and a new attitude. He is proud to call the city his home.

He will hit the stage with a full band and plans to perform a few new unreleased songs from his upcoming EP, “The Black Pharaoh” during his set at Brite Winter.

“Sometimes things happen on stage and you have to be a comedian — you have to always keep things going. You have to have a lot of passion. You want the artist to actually look you in the eyes and tell you something,” he said. “When I’m on stage people can tell I love what I do,”

Keep up with him on Twitter and Instagram by following @ArchieGreen.

]]>http://www.britewinter.com/brite-winter-2015-artist-spotlight-archie-green/feed/0Brite Winter 2015 Artist Spotlight: Uno Ladyhttp://www.britewinter.com/brite-winter-2015-artist-spotlight-uno-lady/
http://www.britewinter.com/brite-winter-2015-artist-spotlight-uno-lady/#commentsMon, 02 Feb 2015 21:00:07 +0000http://www.britewinter.com/?p=4890by Rachel Hunt Listen while you read: Uno Lady (from Spotify) One of the first times that I remember watching Uno Lady perform was at Now That’s Class in 2010. I fondly recall the Tacocat EP release show with Christa Ebert, Uno Lady as she is known to the audience, doing a quick costume change in the bathroom behind doors… Read more →]]>by Rachel Hunt

One of the first times that I remember watching Uno Lady perform was at Now That’s Class in 2010. I fondly recall the Tacocat EP release show with Christa Ebert, Uno Lady as she is known to the audience, doing a quick costume change in the bathroom behind doors that would not latch, shuffling around the tight space to re-emerge as her alter-ego.

Taking her place on stage, Uno Lady appears as a priestess addressing clergy members, tucked behind a technology-laced altar, she sings a doctrine that Clevelanders can readily get behind. Watching her perform live is an entrancing experience. Her operatic register and looping melodies reach deep into the crowd’s bones, sending goose bumps pleasurably coursing through the skin (this is an actual phenomenon).

Uno Lady has been hard at work since I saw her last. She released Amateur Hour in October at The Happy Dog at the Euclid Tavern, one of the first performers to christen the rejuvenated venue. The album was immediately appealing to me, from the first time I heard “5 Minute Guided Meditation” broadcast over college radio airwaves. The guided meditation sounds similar to calming recitations by Laurie Anderson on Big Science; poignant in its delivery and laugh out loud funny in content.

Part of the draw of Uno Lady is her raw power and confidence. In a music scene disproportionately represented by men, Uno Lady has always acted as a sole experimental female musician since 2007, a time when even less women were making music in Cleveland (or so it seems to me.) She embodies a metaphorical beacon of light to other women in the community. Ebert retains her feminine posture and graceful delivery throughout the new record while still commanding attention with each hook and pun-filled refrain.

Here are a few questions we were able to ask her before her performance at Brite Winter Fest:

Uno Lady is experimental in nature and a bit unorthodox considering how most Top 40 music is made. How do you manage to keep your music accessible for listeners despite it being unconventional in its conception?

That is a good question to which I have a confusing answer for: a person listening was an unintended, yet welcome, consequence that has helped shape how I write. I am wholeheartedly flattered people listen and I’m learning the musical hoops to becoming more accessible: getting a website, figuring out how to be on iTunes, putting out records. When I first started recording, I did not consider I would be playing shows a year later. My goal was shortsighted and didn’t go beyond recording for fun.

What artists have inspired you to take the route you have in your music?

Roy Orbison, Laurie Anderson, DEVO, earlier Coco Rosie to name a few.

You recently received a Prestigious Workforce Fellowship in 2014 that funded the making of “Amateur Hour”. Did earning the fellowship change the way you approached the writing of the record or making music?

I am so grateful for the fellowship. It will change my life for the better for many years to come. It reaffirmed I should make music and that I should take the time to develop my skills. It allowed me to buy things I needed to complete recordings. Literally everything I was using was slightly broken. It also allowed me to get help and pay people with fair wages rather than lasagna. I have used home cooking as a form of currency in the past.

The fellowship also gave me access to tools I did not have prior. There were these Creative Capital seminars that have tips on marketing, etc. It helped me step up my game in areas I am modest about. I did spend 90% of the funds within Cuyahoga County, as promised. All three pieces of my fellowship application are online. I did that to be transparent with my plan and so people could see an example of a fellowship application in case they wanted to apply. I am in the process of finishing my final fellowship report. I’ll publish the results on my website when I am finished.

How do you come up with the names for your songs?

All sorts of ways! Sometimes they name themselves: they describe the weird feelings the sound provokes i.e. “Disney Movie on Acid,” or can repeat a lyric i.e. “Day Drinking”; sometimes they have a revolving door of names. What was now “Dear Wes Anderson, You Should Like This Song” was “Temporary Waltz”, and in some cases, I don’t care about the name, want to get it over with and focus on the lyrics.

You are not a classically trained vocalist, yet you have an amazing voice that you use as a tool to make music. Was it ever intimidating for you to perform live, knowing that you may have not had the same experience as your peers?
Thanks for the kind words! Performing is intimidating for sure. I get butterflies in my stomach every show. I’m on display, almost asking for criticism as I share my feelings put to song. It can make you feel really vulnerable, however, I know it is impossible to grow by loitering in my comfort zone. In order to gain new knowledge and develop as a human being, you have to challenge yourself. I can’t allow anxiety to dictate my capabilities.

Although I am not trained I have probably spent thousands of hours singing. I may not know how to sight-read or which note is C, but I do have strong muscle memory. I want to continue to grow musically so with the last bit of fellowship funds I secured some lessons.

How were you able to teach yourself what sounds you were able to make?

I have always been a little bit of a parrot and mimicked sounds.

Tell me a little bit about your recent tour with Delaney Davidson. Why wait as long as you did to tour? What took you to Wisconsin and Minnesota specifically?

I met Delaney at an international one-man-band festival in Denver, CO, on my first tour in 2009. This was, I believe, his ninth trip to the US. He contacted me to see if I wanted to join him for this part of his visit. He was all over the place prior to the Midwest.

We ended up in Wisconsin and Minnesota because the goal was to be around Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin on Halloween for a songwriting event called “Dark Songs.” Located at the Holiday Music Motel, the event invites select musicians to stay for a week, be randomly paired into songwriting groups, and record and perform what was created. It was amazing. I am so stoked I was invited. It was the first time in my life I spent a whole week focused only on music – not working, not going to school – working on my own missions rather than working for others. It was surreal.

Regarding the hiatus – Shortly after the 2009 tour, I received a full scholarship to finish school. I had to reshuffle my priorities for an amazing academic opportunity, and I missed making music daily. In 2012, I graduated top of my class with an undergraduate degree in Urban Studies and was able to finish my Masters degree of Public Administration in May 2013. I started working full-time only three days after graduating. I applied for the fellowship July of 2013, was named a 2014 fellow, and here we are today. Time flies! I may have not been touring but I sure as heck was busy! Also, planning and booking a tour is a lot of work and takes months to do. Like other things, it just kept getting put on the back burner because I was so busy.

What is the most difficult part of being an artist, in your opinion?

Finding time! Making art a priority when you are an adult who has bills to pay and has to work full-time in a world that undervalues creativity. It is easy for it to be placed on a back burner – but it is important to remind yourself (myself) that if you are an artistic person, you have to nurture that side of you. It’s a necessary form of meditation. And when you are true to that part of you, it can help you become a better person and do a better job in other aspects of your life. I have to remind myself that all the time.

]]>http://www.britewinter.com/brite-winter-2015-artist-spotlight-uno-lady/feed/0Brite Winter 2015 Artist Spotlight: Morgan Mecaskeyhttp://www.britewinter.com/brite-winter-2015-artist-spotlight-morgan-mecaskey/
http://www.britewinter.com/brite-winter-2015-artist-spotlight-morgan-mecaskey/#commentsWed, 28 Jan 2015 16:13:14 +0000http://www.britewinter.com/?p=4866by Rachel Hunt Listen while you read: Lover Less Wild by Morgan Mecaskey Taking the plunge from being part of a folk-driven collaborative group to reinventing yourself as a solo musician can be an intimidating undertaking, but Morgan Mecaskey fits none of the singer-songwriter tropes that plague the genre. While the lyrics she pens are exhumed from personal… Read more →]]>by Rachel Hunt

Taking the plunge from being part of a folk-driven collaborative group to reinventing yourself as a solo musician can be an intimidating undertaking, but Morgan Mecaskey fits none of the singer-songwriter tropes that plague the genre. While the lyrics she pens are exhumed from personal experience and often are tinged with self-doubt, their delivery is confident and self-assured. In person Mecaskey seems completely in control of the future of her musical career, backed up by a talented band with members that she has known for years.

“I’ve never wanted to make music in a box,” Mecaskey says, the sun shining onto her face through the window of The Wine Stop on Lee Road, a draft beer in her hand. “It’s meant for a band. I’m not a singer-songwriter kind of girl.”

Lover Less Wild is comprised of intricately orchestrated tracks, arranged into four songs adding up to about 18 minutes in length. The material on the album surpasses any expectation that listeners may place on female singer-songwriters, the Norah Jones or Lisa Loeb types who have represented the phrase up to now. That’s why it’s difficult to categorize the music that Mecaskey creates, because she has successfully escaped that box.

Mecaskey composes all of the instrumental arrangements in her songs, overlapping saxophone, keyboards, vocal melodies, and drums into powerful serenades. “I have a somewhat unorthodox story, but it’s similar to many people. I took Suzuki piano from when I was four, so I know how to write,” she says. “I went [to Interlochen] as a jazz piano student. It was really intimidating. I had been studying classical piano for 15 years and I thought that was the only thing I could do.”

In high school, Mecaskey played in the band Tinamou with members of her current live line-up (Anthony Foti, Matt DeRubertis) until 2011. In 2012, she wrote the album Righteous Kind and released it under her own name. Folk inspired arrangements grace a few songs on December’s Lover Less Wild, yet her background in jazz is more pronounced on these new songs.

“I’ve actually started working on some other stuff and to be honest, I feel like I’m still trying to find my voice. Here is ‘me’ as the artist, very subjectively trying to be objective and talk about my own work,” she says introspectively. “You can still hear me in each of the songs, but it ranges from blues to this ethereal folk to indie rock. I like the humility and the song-based-ness of folk music; I like the prowess and musicianship of jazz and blues; I love the visceral angst of rock. I’m trying to unify all those in some way, shape or form.”

When chatting about the differences between her real self and her artistic creation, the line seems to be thin. Singer-songwriter may not be the way to describe what we’re hearing from Mecaskey as a composer, but it does describe the simple yet confessional lyrics that are available to us.

“This record was extremely personal, it was the most candidly honest. The ‘I’ in some songs could be the universal ‘I’, but I did experience these things personally. That’s not always the case. I’ve written from a man’s perspective before, I’ve written from an observational perspective, but this record was more personal content-wise,” Mecaskey admits.

The EP opens with “White Horse”, one of two standout singles that display Mecaskey’s penchant for genre twisting and soaring, mature vocals. “There will not be a shining image of me, coming in on a white horse, riding victorious,” she croons to guitars and drums orchestrated in a style similar to Muse or Radiohead (you can hear this again during the climax of “Lover Less Wild”). The music is in strong conflict with what is actually being said in the chorus. There is a galloping beat, driving guitar, and confident vocal delivery, but Mecaskey is telling us not to expect her to be the hero, even though she comes out sounding like one on these tracks.

For Brite Winter, Mecaskey requests that the audience come with ears open. “It’s thinking music, so that you can engage in the music on different levels,” she says. “You can engage with it on a groove-based level, you can engage with it on an intellectual level, you can both meet up in the middle. It won’t all sound the same. There’ll be a dynamic contour to the show.”

Attendees can also expect to catch Morgan Mecaskey inside. Even though the Cleveland-native loves outdoor hikes in the winter and participated in an ancient Norwegian tradition called “The Polar Plunge” this year with her husband and friends where they jumped into Lake Erie in January, her guitar is a bit more fragile. “I have bought so many instruments over the years, I say this like I’m so old,” she laughs, barely in her mid-twenties. “This guitar, my most recent acquisition, is a 1962 or 64, Guild M-20. It’s the same model that Nick Drake used.”

Mecaskey is good at understanding the in’s and out’s of writing a great song: “The songs that I’ll return to, the songs that I love […] they’re real, they’re honest, and they get me in my gut. If the song gets me in my gut in a way that can tap into my head but never makes its way down to my heart, I’m more liable to forget it.”

]]>http://www.britewinter.com/brite-winter-2015-artist-spotlight-morgan-mecaskey/feed/0Brite Winter 2015 Artist Spotlight: Roseshttp://www.britewinter.com/brite-winter-2015-artist-spotlight-roses/
http://www.britewinter.com/brite-winter-2015-artist-spotlight-roses/#commentsFri, 16 Jan 2015 20:52:27 +0000http://www.britewinter.com/?p=4857by Rachel Hunt Listen while you read: roses EP by roses Laozi, a famed philosopher and poet from ancient China, once wrote “if you do not change direction, you may end up where you’re going.” This advice may seem completely arbitrary, and it most definitely came from a website of inspirational quotes, but I think that this piece of prose… Read more →]]>by Rachel Hunt

Laozi, a famed philosopher and poet from ancient China, once wrote “if you do not change direction, you may end up where you’re going.”

This advice may seem completely arbitrary, and it most definitely came from a website of inspirational quotes, but I think that this piece of prose accurately sums up Matt Scheuermann’s year, starting a new musical project called Roses and finding himself somewhere he hadn’t been before.

“I think moving was symbolic. I didn’t know it was symbolic at the time. I moved because of the reasons a lot of people move,” reflects Scheuermann over the telephone, dialing in from Philadelphia.

“It’s the type of thing that happens and you don’t know it’s happening. This was so necessary, it was so perfect, but I had no idea. To me, it was the simplest decision. I’ll see what happens, but subconsciously I was saying ‘I need to move, you have to move, you have to symbolically change around this. Your thoughts, the way you approach things, the people you surround yourself with,’” he says.

Last year on February 21st, Scheuermann was in Cleveland, celebrating his birthday and having a hard time finding a job, but he also unveiled Roses to Facebook friends eager to hear something new from the solo musician who had for so many years operated under the moniker, American War.

In May, he played a show as Roses in Chicago on the way to record an album with The Sidekicks, whom he’d been recording and touring with for more than four years. However, Scheuermann’s path diverged with Columbus-based Sidekicks and he moved to Philadelphia in June.

Scheuermann has thrown himself heart-first into his new project, releasing a three song EP via Facebook, with its physical release due out on cassette via Stereophonodon on Valentine’s Day, just in time for Brite Winter Fest.

“A big part of American War was questioning whether or not people would like it,” Scheuermann says. “It’s different with Roses; it’s more of a personal thing. I feel better about the songwriting because it’s more about what I want rather than what I think other people want. It’s kind of a strange thing to say, but I think it allows me to be weirder and I want to do that. I need to do that.”

American War always shined through its flaws and became one of the most endearing acoustic acts in the local punk community that revered Scheuermann’s aesthetic on albums such as Rhetoric (2009) and Symptoms (2013). The songwriting on Roses’ debut songs are in comparison, flawless.

“What I’m interested in now is not necessarily my capabilities, but my ability to control [them…] I don’t want to just sing as loud and hard as I can all the time, just because I can. Sure I can, but I don’t want to keep doing that. I want to hone in, I want to find a vocal range, I want to find a key to play guitar in, I want to find all these things and work on it like a craft,” explains Scheuermann.

“Boys”, “Preacher”, and “Summer Sounds” are much more balanced in their approach on Roses’ EP, with lovely melody, instrumentation and harmonization stringing each song along, instead of driving guitar chords punched out hastily to keep time, which became characteristic of past projects. Roses still sounds like Scheuermann, but where American War mimicked folk music of yester-year arranged for his friends to enjoy, Roses is a sweet meditation in calmness and a mantra for what is to come.

“Maybe certain people would like aspects of what I used to do, but I would say that the stuff I’m working on now is more refined,” Scheuermann says in anticipation for his performance coming up in February. The last time most Clevelanders would have seen him was at Weapons of Mass Creation Fest in 2013 as American War, where he played a rousing rendition of “Linger” among his own originals.

“I’m thinking way more about every aspect of my song; I don’t want to just push the highest note, I want to work on the things I like to do. I think that people will understand once I play a couple songs. It’s honing in on my abilities, it’s not exaggerating them,” he says hopefully.

Scheuermann seems to be onto something with Roses and is happy with the amount of growth he has experienced in his personal life and his continued passion for creating music since moving to Philly. “It’s very interesting how the physical makeup of the city affects art,” he says.

Often, the direction that we find ourselves angled towards is the exact course we were meant to take. It may take moving a state or two away, abandoning outgrown endeavors, and embracing change but in the end it’s worth it.